As social networking becomes the ‘in’ thing, people are beginning to question where that leaves the use of email. You’ve heard the saying, ‘video killed the radio star,’ so is this a case of history repeating itself? Is email about to fall victim to social networking?

Well, no we don’t think so. From a Ph. point of view, we just don’t buy this theory that “email is dead,” and there are plenty of reasons why:

• People still send hand-written letters
• Nearly all websites that require registration request an email address
• Email notifies you of updates from your social networks
• Email is universal, social networks are not
• Many people have no interest in joining social networks but will use email
• Email is still improving
• Even social networks recognise the importance of email
• More social media use means more email use
• As far as marketing is concerned, email is doing pretty well

Businesses should be merging social aspects with their email programs to not only expand the reach of their offers, but to maintain customer loyalty and ultimately grow their database. So if you’ve been questioning the life expectancy of email, stop now. Keep in mind that about 50% of content is shared through email and social media is a great way to get subscribers.

In case you’re STILL not convinced, here are some final thoughts for you;

• Mobile apps will continue to keep email relevant in the mobile world.
• Google recently released its own social media product, Buzz, which the company decided would fit best with Gmail.
• Microsoft Outlook only recently started integrating social networks into the inbox.
• The social networks themselves are creating email services - Facebook is said to be working on its own...and we know how popular Facebook is.
  

Google has just announced that public status updates from Facebook will now be included in their real-time search. This means that the largest social network is finally getting to play in Google’s real-time search alongside the likes of Twitter.  These real-time results feature prominently on the first page of Google’s search results for relevant queries – so don’t miss out.

This is good news for businesses, which should be getting a good amount of Facebook appearances in Google's real-time search results, and possibly in the real-time search results in general (due to Facebook's huge user-base). Right now, Facebook isn't dominating the results, but that is bound to change with it being the largest social networking site.

A lot of brands who don't have Facebook pages in place should be considering this news as the perfect reason to go and create one. Due to the increased exposure, your site will be looking at gaining more fans than ever before.

The use of social media has grown significantly over the past two years but new research from E-Consultancy indicates that most businesses are still in the experimental stage when it comes to their efforts.

61% say they have experimented with social media, but not done that much whilst 90% say they expect social media to take up more time in the next year. Only 2% expect less time to be spent on social media next year.

Whilst it seems most businesses are still only experimenting with social media, the future looks set in that direction.

Facebook is most commonly used in social media, with 85% of companies surveyed using it as part of their marketing strategy. This is followed by Twitter (surprisingly) at 77%, LinkedIn at 58% and YouTube at 49%.

Over 60% of respondents say that the amount of money spent on social media has increased since last year and 81% of companies expect social media budgets to increase over the next year. So whilst the majority of companies are experimenting for now, they must be seeing results otherwise why would they forecast such increases?

Do you agree with these results? How important is social media to your business?

Let us know…

A growing number of resort and spa destinations are spreading their wings and reaching a wider customer base via social media. With the help of social networking platforms they are broadening their branding efforts and connecting with potential customers that they might not have reached through traditional advertising.

World-famous mountain resort company Vail Resorts now pours 80% of their marketing budget into a social media strategy. With this, the company has launched three new websites each with their own Twitter account. Each website targets a slightly different audience but the one thing everyone shares is a love for skiing and snowboarding and now Vail Resorts has provided an outlet to keep everyone updated with their news and events.

‘The Canyons’ began using social media two years ago by launching an employee-run blog in conjunction with Twitter and Facebook accounts. They began to understand the power of social media when they held a contest giveaway on Facebook. Overnight their number of fans grew so quickly that they started to think about more social media strategies.

Vail Resorts, ‘The Canyons’ and many other resorts are now realising that social media is the only realm where anyone can do effective branding. With advertising space, you’re limited by size and cost whereas with social media you can actually talk about all things relevant to you, as much as you want and for very little cost.

The click of a mouse may now be just as powerful, if not more so, than word of mouth but just don’t forget that successful social media strategies do require dedication and consistency.

When it comes to quality versus quantity, quality should always take precedence. ‘The Canyons’ take on social media was growing with substance and that’s more important than growing in numbers, because numbers don’t guarantee staying power. Whilst you want a lot of online followers, you only really want to communicate with people who are genuinely interested in using your service.

Above all, know your audience. Like with any individual or company leveraging social media, resort owners must accept that they’re no longer in complete control of their brand. However, research and attention to detail goes a long way in monitoring how a business is perceived.

Twitter is testing an ad platform, which is expected to be released next month. When the product does launch, it will be made clear when sponsors have paid for ads, and the ads themselves will be "relevant and useful, so the user doesn't think of it as an ad."

Twitter recently released a Super Bowl Chart that showed people tweeting throughout the game about the game itself and tweets about specific advertisers.

Following this, it is possible that Twitter's ad platform will tie into this "what people are already talking about" kind of thing, but that would seemingly make it much more difficult for a lesser-known brand to have any kind of advertising success.

At the moment nobody knows exactly how Twitter is going to present its ads yet but the question is - how will they do it in a way that users won't think of it as an ad?

We think it's probably going to involve some real-time engagement on the part of the advertiser, which leads us to wonder how is this different from any other unpaid, branded tweet?

That could be a difficult problem to address, one that we’re sure Twitter won’t have ignored, so if they're planning on launching next month - they must have a pretty good solution.

A new study has revealed that the majority of consumers react positively when companies respond to postings on social media sites. The response indicates the value of social media as a new way to engage people and build your company’s image, reputation and brand.

The study found 55% of consumers felt positively when companies responded to a social media posting, with only 5 percent reacting negatively and 40 percent remaining neutral.

The study included feedback from 27,000 consumers about their use and impressions of social media whilst 22 companies provided information on their social media policies to see how it compared.

Whilst the results reinforce the value of monitoring social media sites, companies should also be aware of the fine line between using social media to connect with customers and constantly selling to them.

Other highlights of the survey included:

•    60% of consumers engage in social media sites (62% women, 57% men).
•    The percentages by age closely mirrored the general population with 35 year olds and younger using social media 80% of the time or more and 36 to 50 year olds using it an average of 60% of the time. Of those consumers in their 70's and 80's, 21% are visiting social media sites.
•    Slightly more than 85% consumers utilise on Facebook, where all the participating companies have a presence, 38% on YouTube, 19% on MySpace, and almost 13% on Twitter.
•    One in ten consumers who did contact consumer affairs departments from the 22 companies polled posted dialogue to a social media site. 58% percent of the women posted a positive comment, compared to 49% for men. 35% of the males posted a negative comment versus 26% of women.

Social media marketing campaigns are proving to be goldmines, rich with customer engagement offering an insight that companies wouldn’t normally have. Companies like Pepsi have been going to great lengths to adopt this kind of collaboration with fans, and the rewards have been worth it.

Pepsi’s Mountain Dew division is several stages into its DEWmocracy campaign — a plan to launch a new Mountain Dew flavour with the public’s involvement at all levels of the process. The aim being to integrate consumers more closely with the brand.

The first DEWmocracy campaign, which launched in 2007, allowed consumers to choose Mountain Dew’s new flavour, colour, name and graphics, and resulted in more than 470,000 people voting and an overall 1 million people taking part in some phase of the process.

In July 2009, when the second DEWmocracy campaign was launched, die-hard Mountain Dew fans had to narrow decide on a new flavour to become a permanent part of the Mountain Dew family, using social media platforms Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Every part of the campaign involves the fans and the public — from picking flavour names, to voting on the best user-submitted ad campaign. Pepsi needed their customers to be involved throughout.

This type of marketing is less about crowd sourcing and more about collaboration. Pepsi recognises that DEWmocracy has been driven by word of mouth and this way doing business, rather than an ad campaign, recognises the passion consumers feel for Mountain Dew.

Pepsi is now looking at social media as the best way to directly communicate with their fans and we think giving your customer ownership of your brand is a fantastic idea.

1. Use Keywords

This may seem obvious, but make sure you’re using keywords not only in your content, but in your titles and updates. If the right keywords are in the title, then those keywords are also more likely to appear in any ensuing Tweets, Facebook updates, etc. If someone searches for those keywords, they will be more likely to find your content in a real-time search. The same goes for your own Tweets/status updates. Even if you are not sharing an article, if you want your update to be found, use relevant keywords.

2. Talk about Timely Events

Simply mentioning events that are current will put you in the direction of those results, provided the right keywords are in play. Provide legitimate conversation and put yourself on more people's radars, without throwing links at them every time.

3. Have Lots of Followers

If you have a lot of followers or friends on social networks, or even just readers of your blog, you are going to get more people sharing your content. The more people sharing your content, the more your content will be making its way into real time searches.

4. Promote Conversation

Whether on your blog or on a social network - try and spark some conversations. Talk about topics that people are interested in. This is tied to number 2. The more conversations you are involved with, the bigger the impression you will make in real times searches.

5. Include Calls to Engagement

Buttons like Tweetmeme's and Digg's can be put in articles to show the amount of retweets/diggs your article has had - acting as a meter for engagement. The buttons provide a "call to action" to share your content. People can digg or retweet your story with a simple click, and you're one step closer to being found in real-time search.

With all this talk of Twitter, Facebook and social media, you may think that blogging is a thing of the past. Well don’t! Blogging can in fact be a part of social media because the ability to comment on blog posts leads to engagement between the author and user.

Blogs can still drive big-time traffic to websites and an example of this has recently been illustrated by the launch of e-commerce site, Alice.com.

Alice.com sells everyday household items right from the manufacturers, rather than through middleman retailers. When it launched in June 2009, by July it had doubled its traffic to 387,000 unique visitors, according to Compete.

Guess where the majority of that traffic came from? Well, according to Compete, it came from word-of-mouth from blogs. In fact, its number one traffic source was Blogger.com. Not Twitter. Not Facebook. Not search.

Blogger accounted for 18% of Alice.com's referral traffic in July and on top of that, Compete says Alice's conversion rate jumped to 3.5% in July as well.

Of course, you have to give bloggers something to talk about to get valuable blog traffic. It's no different than getting people to talk about you on social networks or through any other form of word-of-mouth marketing. It starts with your product. Clearly Alice.com, had something that many people wanted to talk about.

As long as you can keep your bloggers (consumers) happy, your business too could enjoy a successful future.

Twitter has begun rolling out location-based trending topics. The product, officially called Local Trends, will currently only reach 1 percent of users today but everybody should access to it soon.

Here’s what we can tell you so far:

•    Local Trends allow you to set a specific location, so that you can see the trends around you. Most of the time, this would be your wherever you’re based, however it will be able to change if you travel elsewhere.

•    Clicking on Local Trends gives you a list of different cities and countries in which you can view trends.

•    You can access these trending topics from Twitter.com, on the right-hand column.

•    A full rollout should occur sometime next week, if testing goes smoothly.

We think this is a logical and smart move, especially in the wake of the rise of location-based service. It is good news for small and mediums sized businesses that use Twitter, as they can reach the local area rather than competing on a global scale.

We have recently been working with a client to improve their conversion rate and one of our recommendations was that they make their keywords location specific (within 25 miles.) They are now dominating the traffic searching within that area – which just happens to be over 150,000 searches every month.